Vision
by Samuraibrarian
Summary: Zirsha, Jedi healer, contends with a plague afflicting Jedi Masters, and haywire precognitive ability. SWTOR Consular Story Spoilers, and some foreshadowed F!Consular/Jorgan.
1. Chapter 1

Zirsha settled herself on a low dry-stack stone wall meters below the shuttle pad, gathered heavy, dark robes around her against the cold and wind, and let her mind drift. Her youth school mentor had recommended that, on the night before her peer group left Mirial to complete their training at the Jedi Enclave on Tython, they meditate on their connection to their homeworld and on what the future might hold.

She desperately envied the students in her cohort who recounted elaborate, laser-clear visions, especially the Miraluka, who'd honed their Force-sight out of necessity. When impressions arose to the surface of her mind during meditation, they came in a frustrating jumble of unconnected sensory artifacts. A sound here, a scent or spatial impression there. No through-line, no story.

The smell of mineral dust and propellant thick in the air. The distant roar and rumble of artillery fire, more felt through the ground than heard. Two green-gold points of light, oncoming, burning like stars in the black. A haze of physical pain and exhaustion, and a determined, focused mind lancing through it.

Zirsha had seen variations on this vision for months. She'd run the details by her mentors and instructors, such as they were, and other than confirming that evidence of a firefight was to be expected in wartime, they'd had nothing to say. From a people who valued the concept of destiny so highly, and likewise prized the visions that were evidence of it, it was hard not to feel self-conscious about her difficulties, or to ignore the unspoken reprove of her superiors.

An artillery strike lit the sky with a brief, dull orange flash. The heavily-armored silhouette of a soldier lurched uphill toward her. She'd scrambled down from her perch and struck out toward the injured trooper before she was completely conscious of what she was doing.

_Dehydrated, badly so. Crushing injury on the left side of the thorax, definitely broken ribs, possibly a punctured lung._ The Force allowed her to discern what distance, darkness, and ten kilos of plasteel armor obscured. Though a poor seer, she was the most gifted healer in her peer group. A new set of tattoos, blackening her fingertips from the nailbeds to the first knuckles attested to her talents. She punched the panic button on the holocom tucked into her sleeve.

_Hypothermic, in spite of the weather and good gear._ "Sir? Zirsha, Jedi Order. Here to help." _Pulse too high, and weaker than it should be. _Kark._ Hypovolemic Shock. _The trooper staggered to a stop.

She was quite sure she had no idea what species of creature was under that armor. Through the open visor of the helmet, she saw a brow surfaced with short, fine tawny-red hair and a pair of gold-green eyes that reflected the faint lights from the shuttle pad as if they were lined with metallic foil.

"Master Jedi," he wheezed. _"_My squad…" he turned back in the direction of his approach before his eyes rolled up and knees buckled.

She stepped in, caught him by the shoulders, and muttered an entirely un-Jedi-like oath as she slowed his fall. "Sir? Still with me?" _Airway clear, thank _kark_. Still breathing_. _Circulation's going to become an issue pretty quickly if we can't get that internal trauma under control. "_Sir, I've got a medcorps team on the way to our position. You'll be in the best care Mirial can offer very soon."

His plastron was not breached, but dented sharply inward a few finger-lengths under the sternum on the left side, confirming her initial suspicions. She sunk into a trance and prepared to survey the full extent of the damage.

"Zirsha?"

She lurched forward in surprise, nearly falling off of the wall. The wall? Her legs were numb from prolonged sitting. Master Saios, her chief mentor, regarded her with a curious expression.

"You've been out for hours. The shuttle is about to depart. Let's return to the transport terminal."

False dawn showed as a spear of pale blue light on the horizon. She stared down the hill at the spot where she'd found the injured soldier. Nothing. A vision, then. She flexed fingers that ached from the cold and shook her head, as if to clear it. Saios extended an arm, and she alighted from her perch, stumbling over nerveless feet and the hem of her cloak.

They walked in silence for a time. When the white sand of the hill gave way to the duracrete shuttle pad, her mentor spoke. "What did you see?"

"I don't know."


	2. Chapter 2

Quilb felt the prickle of a pair of staring eyes and turned around. A formless heap of heavy, off-black robes with the tattooed, gold-skinned face of a Mirialan girl peered up from the height of his elbows with undisguised interest.

"Padawan, may I help you?"

She bowed in acknowledgement. "Master Quilb? I found this one abandoned out by Kaleth while I was running errands there. I asked around, and the senior students said you'd know what to do." She retracted one voluminous sleeve. Quilb recognized the fetid, faintly-metallic reek of a Fleshraider before he registered the source. The Padawan had an infant of the species, swaddled in a ream of dirty sackcloth and cradled in one arm. "I fed and watered it on the way back from my dig site…Don't have much experience with Fleshraiders who aren't trying to crack me open for bone marrow, but I think it might be sick. Color's bad, and its chomping reflex seems a little weak. Anything we can do for it?"

Quilb reached for the squirming parcel. The hair on the back of his neck rose, and his ears briefly flattened against the sides of his head. He felt a rush of aversion as she passed the infant fleshraider to him, and involuntarily pictured a slideshow of the padawans with grievous wounds inflicted by adults of the species, some dead, that had passed through the doors of the Temple. He noted those feelings and images without judgment, as a scientist might observe an animal's behavior from behind a view screen, and allowed them to pass him by. Jedi training was made for moments like this.

"A fleshraider baby! See how the Force tests my dedication to assisting the helpless of this world." He was acutely aware of the Mirialan, bright cyan eyes still fixed on him like a pair of laser sights. "You did the right thing, Padawan. Leave him with me; I'll convene the Council to decide how best to proceed." He settled the fleshraider infant in one arm against his side and gave a nod of dismissal. She didn't move.

"Uh, Padawan, is there anything else?"

"I'm sorry if this is rude, Master, but what are you, exactly? Species-wise, I mean."

Qulib chuckled. He'd fielded that question quite a few times in his tenure on Tython, but most padawans asked in a less-direct fashion. "I'm Cathar, originating from a world of the same name."

Her gaze turned inward briefly. "Cathar," she repeated to herself in a reasonable approximation of his accent, committing the unfamiliar word to memory. "Before I left Mirial, I had a vision. There was a soldier…hard to discern anything under all of that armor, but he definitely had eyes like yours."

"Many Cathar become warriors, either with aptitude for the Force or with other gifts." There was a long, depressing history of other species exploiting the Cathar aptitude for violence, but Quilb thought it best to omit that fact for the time being. "Perhaps you will meet this trooper some day."

"I hope so. At least before the hypoxemia permanently damages his brain." Evidently satisfied, she turned to leave. A few paces away, she remembered her manners, backed up, turned around, and bowed by way of thanks before disappearing into the crowd.


	3. Chapter 3

"Simple happy language-words? Wow." Zirsha pressed her fingers against temples that were starting to ache and squinted out at the avenue leading away from Senate tower, the late-afternoon sun glaring through Coruscant's perpetual shroud of smog. The negotiation with the Gree ambassador droids had taken up more of the day than she'd anticipated. She wasn't sure if she'd ever get the smell of the Works out of her hair and robes. Her stomach rumbled. She struck out toward the Galactic Market, intending to remedy at least the latter problem.

"Master Jedi! A moment, please,"

She turned. A harried-looking Zabrak woman in battle dress hurried toward her, auburn hair flying.

"Lieutenant Tahrvi Telgar, Republic Special Forces. Sorry to bother you; I just picked up an assignment that needs the expertise of a Jedi. General Wendin thought you'd be a good fit for the job. He was going to comm you, but I figured I could save you the run back through the tower."

Zirsha rolled her eyes skyward and suppressed an exasperated sigh. "Lieutenant, have you had lunch? If this isn't a dire emergency, the Republic will derive more benefit from its defenders when they're adequately fed. Do you like Tionese food?"

"Yes sir. Beats the hell out of field rations."

"I'm buying, then. Come with me."

"Yes sir."

…

The quiet, dimly-lit interior of Kaon Cuisine was a welcome contrast to the bustle outside. Zirsha's pre-existing relationship with the staff and a generous tip for the Brigian host afforded them very prompt service and a seat in a secluded back-corner booth. After the dishes were cleared and the stimtea was served, the pair began to discuss the upcoming assignment.

"Private hyperspace lanes? I knew those existed in theory, but I guess it never occurred to me that the Jedi would be in on a project like that. Or that there would be strategically-valuable information left in the Temple twenty years after the Sacking, and that no one would've retrieved it yet. "

"No kidding. The Imps have the Reclamation Service to salvage or destroy the good stuff before our ground-pounders get their hands on it. You'd think we'd have people to do that job on our side." Lieutenant Telgar produced a holopad, bearing a schematic of Coruscant's ruined Jedi Enclave. "Here's what Belkin could tell us about the situation: His squad went in expecting to find the place deserted, or a few unskilled looters at most. They found the place covered by a full company of Imperials and swarming with Sith. They'll be set up mostly here, here, and here, so I think we'll encounter the least resistance if we take this path to the objective." She traced a route along the wall of the circular Council Chamber to a short corridor and a connecting room southwest of the entrance.

"I'll trust you on that, Lieutenant. I'm combat-certified, but as medic, not a war-chief"

The Zabrak produced a sigh, followed by a broad grin, skewing the lines of her elaborate facial tattoos. "Well that's a relief. Glad to hear it."

"I take it this has been a problem?"

"Don't hear me wrong: the best fighters in the Republic are outclassed by mediocre Jedi in single combat. Having Jedi, especially ones with real training in strategy, in a command-and-control role for big actions makes us practically unstoppable. But for anything else, the op tends to dissolve into a pissing match at light speed. Most Jedi are blindingly incompetent to lead soldiers. Most generals don't know how to take advantage of what Jedi can do well."

"So noted." Zirsha's eyes unfocused briefly before she spoke up again. "Weird question. I don't know much about Zabrak anatomy. Do you have two hearts?"

"Well… yes.

"Okay, that's what I'm hearing. Good to know. To the Temple, then?"

…

Even with the ceiling blown open to the sky, the upper gallery collapsed to the floor, and the further deterioration wrought by two decades of exposure to the polluted stew of Coruscant's weather, the ruined Jedi temple had an unexpected beauty. Zirsha resolved to visit again when the place wasn't full of enemy combatants

Getting past the Imperial soldiers were a relatively simple matter. The instability of the wreckage in the council chamber made it easy to fling debris into a sniper nest or unbalance the footing of canoneers and riflemen, letting recoil do most of the work of flinging them onto their backs. The handful of Sith apprentices were another matter. _Sith feed on aggression and fear_, the Jedi reminded herself, _you're at an advantage when you're empty of both_. When her calm began to falter under the assault of two screaming, wildly-slashing initiates in the close confines of a hallway, she began to recite titration tables in her head, timed against the steady rhythm of Tahrvi's carbine.

The hallway opened into a circular room, littered with chunks of broken plaster, splintered wood, and various electronic artifacts. Zirsha sidestepped the half-crushed case of a navcomp hard-drive and identified the iridescent shards spread out in a fan around it as the obliterated platters of an old modular astrogation array. They must be getting close.

"There!" Tarvi pointed out a footlocker-sized, armored metal case resting against the back wall and dashed over to examine it. Zirsha heard the click of the latch opening, a few seconds of silence, followed by an impressive stream of multi-lingual invective from her colleague.

"Motherkarking sonsahutts! They've taken the drives already. Our job just got five times ha-"

A shadow passed briefly over Zirsha's head like a cloud. She threw one arm out in a backhanded sweep, sending Tahrvi sprawling. An instant later, a Sith landed a lightsaber-blow in the empty air the trooper had occupied.

"Good show, child." he said. "Would that my underlings had at least your sense. No matter. I can find new ones." He brought the saber overhead and swung for the middle of Zirsha's body. She stepped off-center, produced her own saber and voided the blow. He was testing her.

"You're smart, but not much of a duelist at all. This will be brief, then." He lifted the blade and swung again, this time at an angle meant to bisect her from collar to hipbone. She danced away and blocked again, binding his blade at the height of her waist.

"The worst you can do is to rejoin me to the Force. Have at it."

Tahrvi leveled her carbine and fired, slightly wide of the intended mark. Zirsha corrected the trajectory of the blast with her saber, hitting the Sith squarely in the gut. He howled in pain and advanced on the trooper, brandishing his saber-staff in a blinding whirl. She responded with a hail of blaster-fire, slowing his advance. Zirsha took that opportunity to auger a back-spun, speeder-sized chunk of masonry into his head. He fell.

After a long moment in which both women silently tried to catch their breath, the Jedi spoke up. "That was some masterful shooting, Lieutenant. Now, how shall we proceed in tracking down that missing astrogation computer?"

Tahrvi pushed up to her feet and prodded the side of the Sith's remains with the muzzle of her carbine, producing a muffled clank. "You mean, _this_ missing astrogation computer?"

…

"You know, Master Jedi, I might have to change my opinion about the utility of force-wielders in assignments like these," the trooper opined as she and the Jedi made their exit. "I'm happy to have had you along."

"I appreciate that, Lieutenant. I can take the astrogation comp back to General Wendin if you want. I've got an appointment with my Master this evening anyhow."

Tahrvi swung her leg over her swoop-bike and ignited the engine. "Take care, Master Jedi. Hope we get to party again sometime. I've gotta head back to port. If I'm away too much longer, my sergeant will be yanking his hair out…and he's a Cathar, so he's got a lot of it."

"Wait, he's a _what_?" The engine's roar drowned out Zirsha's query. She followed Tarvi's path with her eyes until the exhaust trail was indistinguishable from Coruscant's haze.


	4. Chapter 4

The shielding ritual was complete. Master Yuon was sitting up in bed, speaking coherently for the first time in weeks, and no longer trying to throttle, concuss, or electrocute her apprentice.

Zirsha was aboard the Defender on her way to Taris, in search of a missing Jedi ecologist with reported symptoms suspiciously similar to Yuon Par's dark side plague. Or rather, most of her was. The ritual had left a significant chunk of her energy, her spirit on the ground in Coruscant, wrapped around her Master like a living barrier, separating her from the Plaguemaster's influence.

In those few fevered hours when Zirsha had tried to commit all the collective wisdom of nine ancient masters to memory, they'd spared only a moment or two to warn her of what backlash she might encounter. The "danger of death," part, she'd assimilated easily enough. That was what was expected of a Jedi, after all. That she'd feel diminished and weak after devoting personal resources to walling out the Plaguemaster was only natural (she just wished that exhaustion hadn't also come with a decreased ability to sleep). They hadn't mentioned that shielding Master Yuon would leave her less able to compartmentalize herself.

She found the change to be oddly fascinating. Whereas emptying and opening herself to her surroundings and, by extension, to the Force had been cause for struggle since she'd been a youngling, she now found it easier to quiet her mind and be receptive. She had previously accepted that certain astronomical events created detectable reverberations, or that various planets and moons exhibited orbital ratios that were described as "harmonic." Now, if she stilled her mental chatter, she could hear a literal music of the spheres, with each world, satellite, and sun contributing a unique voice to the aural tapestry. She'd thought of the seers she knew from the youth academy on Mirial as enviable for their ability to access information that she couldn't, but perhaps a bit scattered or flaky. If they had the background noise of the universe in their heads at all times, though, she could see how it might be difficult to focus on mundane details. She was certainly beginning to have a bit of trouble thinking in a straight line.

There were more visions, still in unconnected sensory fragments, but redoubled in frequency and vividness. The Cathar soldier appeared again. Zirsha didn't know who he was, had never even seen his face clearly, but she knew how the curve of his neck fit against her hand, and how the hair over his spine would spike up when she skimmed her fingers along it. She knew the sound of his heartbeat when she rested her head in the hollow in front of his shoulder, and the warm, musky scent of his body. She knew that the intensity of his focus on her made her feel as if she'd been nailed to a wall.

She jammed the heels of her hands against her cheekbones as if that would stop them from burning. She'd never taken a lover, had only regarded her classmates' romantic entanglements as one curiosity of sentient behavior among many. The task of letting those impressions drift across her mental field of view and observing them without labeling or judgment was proving damnably difficult. Sometimes she wondered whether her Masters had erred in promoting her to Knight and sending her forth.

Qyzen stood in the doorway of the utility closet she'd repurposed as a meditation space, and waited to be acknowledged before speaking up. If he noticed that she was turning unusual colors, he charitably omitted to mention it. "Is late. Herald should rest, yes?"

"Thank you, Qyzen. You're probably right." The Trandoshan proffered an arm. She grasped it, unfolded, and rose from her seat.

"Comms for Herald on bridge. Colonel Gaff and Captain Nellex at Taris. Will wait til morning. Good world for hunters, Taris. Gain many points." Qyzen placed one heavy-taloned hand on her shoulder and turned her body until she was pointed aft, toward her state room. "_After_ rest."

"Alright! I'm going." Zirsha suspected that Yuon had given her companion the project of safeguarding her basic well-being. All things considered, that was probably for the best. "Good night, Qyzen, and thank you for your help." He answered her bow with a nod of his own, and continued to watch with lidless eyes until she closed her stateroom door.


End file.
